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The IMDb Troll Wars
The IMDb Troll Wars was a series of trolling-related conflicts and drama that began and ended on IMDb - lasting from 2006 to circa 2007. It had its roots in the "Weintraub saga" on the SM3 board, but really took off with the rise of the Troll Kingpin and his TKPS. The drama spanned several boards including the Spider-Man 3 board, the "The Dark Knight" board, the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 board, the Family Guy board, several Harry Potter boards, and the Eragon board. The Beginnings The exact beginnings of the Troll Wars are up for debate, with some pointing out Thomas Weintraub and others yet claiming that it didn't really begin until the name TKPS was created. However, the most accepted version is that it began with the arrival of the Troll Kingpin. Unbeknownst to the boards at the time, the Kingpin was secretely the alter ego of Mercuzo, an old reg on the SM3 boa rd who decided to take up the empty throne left behind by Weintraub and usher in a "new era" of trolling. Due in part to the Kingpin's flamobyant, Weintraub-aping personality, most users didn't take him or his threats very seriously at first. The Kingpin began recruiting trolls from all over the site, including the infamous Johnny_20, kathie, m_argentile, Childrens_Tylenol, WRAITH, some old holdovers from his days with SMIN, and lastly, Dr. Raymond Borin, the harbinger of Doctor Weintraub. The return of the doctors worked tremendously to the Kingpin's favor, as he had "prophesized" the event for weeks with no one believing him. Many trolls were astounded by the Kingpin's seemingly prophetic abilities and his organization was taken seriously at last as a legitimate threat to the board's harmony. For months without end, the Kingpin ordered spam attacks, thread hijackings, and other acts of trolling on the board, causing much chaos and discontentment. The doctors aided in the effort by going on nightly blitzkriegs, posting "from the lab cafeteria" while "drunk on beer". The famous troll slayer Pip attempted to expose the Kingpin and Weintraub's identities numerous times, to little success. At one point, Pip himself was theorized to secretely be the Kingpin, as the Kingpin often lavished all kinds of praises on his arch-nemesis. Others suggested simply ignoring the trolls, but these efforts were hampered by the constant account-changing, spamming, and the works of well-intentioned anti-trolls who exacerbated the situation by trying to "fight back" against the trolls. The Kingpin eventually grew bored of the SM3 board and decided to move on to the POTC3 board, which was a major rival to the SM3 board at the time. The Second Phase With Borin and Weintraub now dropped from the organization, the Kingpin found himself looking for new allies on the board. His early trolling efforts were resisted very well by the POTC3 posters, who were generally more organized and mature than the SM3 regs. In addition, the POTC3 regs were backed up by the leadership of Mcjs and Flapjack. Nevertheless, the Kingpin refused to surrender and expanded his reach to the Eragon boards, where he encountered the long-time anti-troll nuisance andrewmt, and returned to the SM3 board to muster up his forces once more while constantly attacking POTC3 whenever he could. The Kingpin used the rivalry to his advantage, painting his anti-POTC3 troll attacks as heroic attempts to place his home, SM3, over the charlatans. The ruse worked, and he was joined by a sudden influx of numerous talented trolling minds including Allseeing-Eye, TheLegendLives, Cacophony, LivingInShadows, and even his old nemesis, the Great Monarch. POTC3 was invaded during the winter in a massive blitzkrieg assault that not even Mcjs could stop. The Eragon boards and "The Dark Knight" boards were also conquered thoroughly, despite anti-troll resistors on both boards. This 2006 Christmas massacre represented the Kingpin's greatest success and finally moved the IMDb administration to take charge. The IMDb verification policy was put in place. The policy demanded that anyone attempting to register on the site give either a credit card number of answer a cellphone text message from IMDb, to insure that trolls would no longer be abel to create 50 different puppet accounts for the sole purpose of mass spamming and troll invasions. The policy wasn't defeated until the Weintraub method was created, but as the method wasn't revealed to the trolling public until Borin began the New TKPS, it effectively shut down all TKPS operations on IMDb. Family Guy message board trolling (2006) Predating the TKPS, widespread, organized trolling on IMDb took place on the Family Guy message board. The most prominent trolls were crm507 (who later went by usernames like crm5077, crm50777, and GeorgeBushForEmperor (a satirical account)) and israelnotjacob. Trolling took place as early as June 2006 - although the user Now and Then claimed on June 8, 2006, that he or she had heard that crm507 had been trolling on the Family Guy board for a year. However, no known evidence besides that claim exists. DOTA Anti-Trolling Era Around that time, trolling became a more prominent issue on the board after two users - Jemascola and muztang04 - took notice. Jemascola took particular notice after reading a thread started by thenamelesswonder513 called "attn: crm507 I'm calling you out." Shortly thereafter, muztang04 also took an interest in the trolling activity - and formed an anti-trolling group called the DOTA (Death of Trolls Association). Only one other user joined the DOTA - professorgumby - but was not as dedicated as muztang04 and Jemascola. One other user, lynchmobJ, at first claimed to sign up - but a month later revealed to be just kidding. The DOTA was unsuccessful at combating trolling. While the idea of an anti-trolling organization was at first somewhat favorable among board users, it quickly became unpopular after it failed to stop crm507 from trolling. The DOTA was no longer taken seriously - although it continued to attempt anti-trolling for much of the summer of 2006. Around mid-July 2006, muztang04 declared that the DOTA was "going into hiding" to let things calm down. On July 14, 2006, crm5077 made a post - noting that trolling activity had gone down after the DOTA went into hiding - suggesting that the DOTA's existence only encouraged trolling. On July 26, 2006, the DOTA launched a plan to bring itself credibility. Under the guise of a fake anti-trolling group called NATS (Not Another Troll Squad), Jemascola spammed the Family Guy board - establishing a dictatorship and claiming invalid any anti-NATS posts. The NATS regime made its debut with the post "THE DECLARATION – PLAYTIME'S OVER – APEX OF TROLLING HERE, NO KIDDING." NATS pretended to be at war with the DOTA. The goal of NATS was for Jemascola to spam the Family Guy board for a few days, and three days later, on July 29th, muztang04 would tell off NATS - and order it to stop trolling. The NATS would stop trolling, and the DOTA would supposedly be praised for bringing peace to the board after three days of relentless trolling by NATS - trolling far more aggravating than that of crm507 and israelnotjacob. However, the NATS account was banned on the day before muztang04 was to tell off the group. Therefore, the plan had failed, and the NATS dictatorship crumbled. Jemascola realized how fun trolling could be, and on July 29, 2006, he resigned as a member of the DOTA - leaving muztang04 as the sole remaining member of the group. SSOT and SMIN Trolling Era Organized trolling became commonplace in the late summer of 2006 - particularly with the establishment of the SSOT (Shadow Society of Trolls) - created and led by a mysterious, legendary user named the Supreme Master Troll. Jemascola joined the SSOT on July 30, 2006, and became friends with other trolls named Muztang2000, dietpepper, kathie_10, and staple_guy - who had his own group named SMIN (Seth MacFarlane is a Nazi). Jemascola established a separate forum to discuss trolling - although he had to recreate the message board multiple times when word of the forum's existence got out - and when the SSOT trolls were harassed by a very effective anti-troll (unaffiliated with the DOTA) named thecrazyguycz. The SSOT managed to troll a lot on the Family Guy message board, and in late August 2006, the SSOT had managed to create 57 consecutive pages worth of troll threads - according to kathie_10, who named the event "The Terrific Troll Takeover." Also, around this time (late August through early September of 2006), Jemascola trolled under various names such as "General NATS" and "Mao_Zedong" - and posted primarily about John Deere riding lawn mowers. By mid-September 2006, wanting to preserve his reputation, Jemascola declared that he had quit trolling. However, he still kept in touch with his troll friends. The SSOT was largely defunct by late September 2006. However, Jemascola attempted to start trolling again in October 2006. However, that didn't last long because he got blackmailed by top_killer, who learned that Jemascola had secretly planned to resume trolling under another username. Jemascola wanted to preserve his reputation, so in mid-October 2006, he quit trolling. Brief SSOT and TKPS Alliance Coincidentally, the TKPS began its rise to prominence around the same time that the SSOT was effectively dead (October 2006). None of the trolls that founded the SSOT established the TKPS (although a few members joined the TKPS). By the time that the TKPS had been established, most of the SSOT trolls were ready to retire from trolling. There was, however, a very short period of time during which the SSOT and TKPS coexisted. On October 14, 2006, thetrollkingpin offered his services to the SSOT. Although the SSOT became allied with TKPS - and put a link to thetrollkingpin's account on its website, Jemascola quit trolling very shortly after doing so - due to being blackmailed by top_killer. The SSOT's website was taken down a few days later, and the SSOT had become effectively dead. As a result, there was no major joint trolling effort by the SSOT and the TKPS. Aftermath The Troll Wars left quite a legacy on all of IMDb, even on forums that weren't directly affected. It is known that Scott and the users of "The War Room" were fully aware of TKPS's existence and activites for some time, even though they weren't discovered by the TKPS until long after the war ended and the TKPS never attacked any Star Wars boards. Also, the aforementioned verification policy is still in place on IMDb, which may have resulted in a thinning number of users in recent years. The war also created a tighter sense of bond and kinship among the users on the attacked forums and over time, even the trolls and regs came to respect one another. This harmony would come to form the basis of the KOT forum and eventually, FWNN.